K&L Email Alerts

Staff Favorites - Gary Westby

I started at K&L in February of 2000, after 4 years of working down the street for another retailer, and although I take care of the Champagne buying here at K&L, I love to drink wine from all over the world. I prize authenticity in wine, and love representative examples of many different styles, whether it is a spicy dry creek zinfandel or a mineral driven Manzanilla. I almost always drink my wine with food, and am drawn to food wines rather than the softer styles that are good for drinking on their own. My wife Cinnamon and I cook a lot of Italian & French food at home, and my list of wines reflects those food choices. I also love value, at every price point, and can't stand "prestige" labels that under deliver in the bottle. I love honest wines for the table. If you love good wine to go with your good cooking too, I think that by joining my personal Sommelier list you will be treated to a wide variety of wines that represent a strong value for money at what ever price range you feel comfortable with. Give it a try!

Reviews

My favorite use for the first Champagne made for rocks is this modified "Final Word" cocktail:
1 ounce Chartreuse Green 750m
1 ounce Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
2 ounces Moet & Chandon "Ice Imperial" Champagne
Prepare a cocktail shaker with plenty of fresh ice, and a large rocks glass with plenty more. Shake the Chartreuse, Luxardo and Lime in the shaker until well chilled. Pour the mixture through a cocktail strainer over the ice in the rocks glass. Top with the Champagne, stir gently and enjoy. As Champagne is less concentrated than gin, it takes a little bit more of it to bring the drink into balance. Since both the lime and the Champagne are acidic, this drink is very bright and refreshing… Perhaps dangerously so! Be careful with these- I thought I was making a more “moderate” drink, but it is easy to get carried away with these!

This daring new release from Roederer comes entirely from the organic portions of their estate vineyard in Cumieres, Hautvillers and Vertus. Unlike all of their other wines, the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are co-pressed in the Nature and the wine is entirely fermented in large oak vats. The result is a Champagne that is rich enough to be balanced without any dosage. The last time I had this wine was at Acquerello paired with Berkshire pork loin with peaches, porcini and a foie gras abd pork demi glace. The wine had the broadness and texture to match the rich dish, while the bone dry, brut nature back end provided ample refreshment.

Over the weekend I tried this Coteaux d'Aix En Provence Rosé with Cinnamon's home-made fried chicken, and today I bought a case. Keith (our French regional buyer) really hit a home run with this carefully made, organically grown gem. The Domaine La Chapelle Saint Victor has all the refreshment of our brightest Sauvignon Blanc, but with lovely round strawberry fruit in the middle. If you like your rosé dry and expressive, this one is for you!

The Charles rosé has the honest toast that comes from extended lees contact and very high quality, subtle dark cherry fruit from the still red wine added to the blend. The best thing about the wine is that this rich toasty character is balanced perfectly with top class chalky drive on the back end. Pairing it with ginger garlic chicken, the Champagne had the vinous power to match the assertive flavors of the dish, and the cut to refresh the palate after each rich bite. I love rosé Champagne that can provide both richness, dark fruit flavor and top class refreshment--this Rosé Reserve from Charles Heidsieck delivers it all!

A classic for a reason. This toasty, well balanced grand marque is the most important cuvee for Pol Roger. A lovely aperitif, and a surprisingly good cellar candidate! I recently had a 20 year old bottle that will rank as one of the best Champagne experiences I have had this year!

This is one of the very best magnums that we have in the store for the cellar. The 2008's combine great ripeness with incredible acidity and the Louis Roederer Brut Rose balances these two features of the vintage perfectly. I have had the wine on three occasions already, and the best experience was at Quince, where the wine was paired with royal osetra caviar on brioche with edible flowers and hollandaise. The fine quality red fruit component and electric acidity of the wine was ideal for this great roe. This is subtle rose with a huge future!

This great house, located in Ay, is owned by the Roederer group but has a style all of its own. If you love the big, broad Pinot Noir wines of Champagne, this is for you. The wine has a good amount of toast, plenty of richness and finishes dry

Words fall short when trying to explain the perfection of the 2002 Salon, so I will start with the facts. This wine is made only in great vintages, only from old vines in the most famous of all Champagne Grand Crus - Mesnil. Because there is never any malolactic fermentation for Salon, the wine must be aged for a decade minimum on the lees, and that is why we are just seeing the 2002 now. This Champagne is the last word on precision and elegance and one of the longest Champagnes that I have ever had an opportunity to try. It will age for longer than most of us will live as bottles from the '20s and '30s prove today. Unfortunately there is not much of it...

Last week I had the chance to meet and taste with Philippe Seconde, whose family has been making Barnaut since 1874. They might be the oldest grower-producer in Champagne. This rosé is made in a unique way, with the Pinot Noir that composes 85% of the blend macerated with the skins, and 15% Chardonnay blended in afterwards to give the wine snap and focus. Philippe loves this wine with spicy food, and I can't wait to try it with a big plate of hot wings!

Before Joseph Krug founded Krug, he worked at Jacquesson. This is a house with a very long history, but also one of the most innovative of all the Grand Marques. They are the only big house to proclaim the batches of their non-vintage on the front label and this one is Cuvee 737. This batch is based on 2009 with 30% reserve wines, and is every bit as dry as the Extra Brut moniker suggests. This precise, laser like Champagne is an absolute dream with sushi!

Bollinger has a sterling reputation in Champagne for stalwart quality for a great reason. They do the hard work to make great Champagne, and there Special Cuvee is the standard barer for their range. Along with Krug, Bollinger is the only grand marque to refuse to give up their barrels, which they still ferment the wine in to this day. They are located in the village of Ay, famous for being the chalkiest terroir for Pinot Noir in all of Champagne, and Ay is the soul of this blend. It is one of the fullest, most powerful non-vintages from the grand marques, and also one of the driest. If you are a fan of Champagne and haven't tried this classic, you should!

Last week I had the chance to meet and taste with Philippe Seconde, whose family has been making Barnaut since 1874. They might be the oldest grower-producer in Champagne. His Grande Reserve is a blend of 2/3 Pinot Noir and 1/3 Chardonnay from the Grand Cru village of Bouzy on the south facing slope of the mountain of Reims. This wine has been fractionally blended since the beginning, and Philippe joked that perhaps one of the many bubbles had a few molecules of the 1874 in it! This is a pure expression of Pinot Noir with a lot of round cherry fruit and excellent acidity. It is dosed at 6g/l.

Why bother with sparkling wine when you can drink real Champagne at such a great price? This fantastic bottle is aged for three years on the lees and has great honest toast from the aging process, as well as great refreshment from the high percentage of estate-grown vines used in the blend. I love this Champagne for its friendly, open-knit personality and its easygoing refreshment, but it has more than this for those who want to take the time to get to know it... It is a serious bottle of Champagne! Don't let the low price fool you!

Tasting this wine in Epernay with Baron Fuente's Eric de Brissis was a great experience. I loved the wine for its poised creaminess, lovely nutty flavors and clean, long finish. This is a very elegant, subtle bottle of wine that will impress the most jaded of palates. In my notebook from that day, I wrote "tastes expensive"... Then he showed me the price. Deals like this don't come every day, and I would suggest that you join me in buying a case, or maybe two!

Great value abounds in Spain, and this Rioja from Campo Viejo delivers not only a great tasting wine for a small price, but also the inimitable style of Rioja. This medium-bodied, mellow wine is fantastic with a wide range of grilled food!

Wow - How do they get so much wine into this Bierzo for such a low price? The folks at Luna Beberide have made a dark, concentrated wine that has the lift and bracing vibrancy to stay in great balance. I can't wait to rip into this with some ribs in the backyard!

This crisp, refreshing bottle of white Rioja is in the style of the cleanest and freshest Sauvignon Blancs, but with a flavor profile all of its own. This wine makes a great aperitif as well as a partner to everything from white fish to cheese. Yum!

Taittinger has always been known for the creamy refreshment that the La Francaise has delivered so consistently through the years. If you like a little bit of toast balanced by some citric zing, this high Chardonnay blend is for you!

The wines of Verzenay are some of my very favorite in all of Champagne, and Patrick Arnould of Champagne Michel Arnould makes some of the very best. This wine has the magical hazelnut quality that many (including myself!) often miss for wood treatment in blind tastings. Because this Grand Cru village faces north the wines are always electric and vibrant, even with high percentages of Pinot in the blend. This is one of our finest values in top grower Champagne.

One of the very best wines that I have tasted from the spectacular 2008 vintage! This is a combination of half very old Pinot Noir from Verzenay and half Mesnil Chardonnay from the Clos Cazals. If you want Champagne that has complexity and depth presented in the most refreshing way possible, this is it. While this tastes great right now, it will repay the patient with spectacular results after a few years in the cellar!

Drinking Krug out of magnum is one of the most luxurious experiences I can think of. The house of Krug is famous for long sur-lie aging and using spectacularly old reserve wines, and in magnum they lavish even more aging in the bottle before sale. If you like the decadent vinosity balanced by lifted grace that this house is famous for, you must try it out of magnum... It is priced at a premium but delivers more of everything that Krugists love!

The value that Patrick Arnould delivers with this top-notch rosé is mind boggling. This is the only rosé Champagne that I have ever had that is exclusively Pinot Noir, but made by blending wines that are vinified white with wines that are vinified red. Patrick is very proud of his Burgundian clones in his best exposed vineyard plot that he uses to make the red wine that gives this Champagne its color and flavor. This rosé has dark cherry authority as well as complex savor from that high quality vineyard. It also has easy refreshment and a dry chalky finish from the rest of his Grand Cru estate vineyard that makes the white Pinot portion. A must try for every rosé fan!

If you like your Champagne clean and refreshing, this is the best bottle that we have for you. Antoine Billecart insists on fermentations that are slow and cold, and the family has developed its own strain of yeast that can work in super low temperatures, resulting in a Champagne that is light as feather and arcs with electric excitement. This wine delivers all of this without any harsh grain, since it has been aged for over sixty months on the lees... A fabulous treat!

The house of Henriot is one of the last of the big name negociants to stay independent, and that independence has allowed them to focus on quality in the bottle. This Champagne is composed of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay from 25 crus within the region, many from their own 87 acre estate. The Souverain has a lovely toasty quality that is nicely balanced by a refreshing zing. It is a perfect aperitif!

The Baron Fuente Esprit gets an amazing five years of ageing on the lees. Not many Champagne houses make a non-vintage wine like this, with such a suave texture from long aging, and none at such a low price. This is elegant Champagne for sure; not at all austere, yet in no way sweet, a balanced and fine aperitif. If you want to find out what expensive tasting Champagne is all about, this is a great bottle to try... And it isn't expensive!

What a fun, open knit bottle of red wine! The Petit Ocnos manages to have great ripe dark fruit while still refreshing with good acid and satisfying with strong vinosity. This will be equally good for a glass after work or with a casual dinner.

Mumm has been making this wine since 1882, and at first it wasn’t sold and used instead only as gifts. The “folded” edge of the label is homage to this history, and used to be a sign that the bottle and gift card were delivered personally by the giver. This Champagne is made at 4.5 atmospheres of pressure (about 65 psi) rather than the regular six (about 90 psi)- a style that used to be referred to as Cremant- in fact this wine was called “Cremant de Cramant” in the past. Now the term Cremant is used to describe sparkling wines made in France outside of the Champagne region that use traditional bottle fermentation and is not allowed for Champagne. It is entirely Chardonnay from the grand cru village of Cramant at the north end of the Cotes des Blancs and this village gives the wine both great ripeness and fabulous chalky minerality. Although the dosage of the Mumm de Cramant is quite low at six grams per liter, this wine is loaded with fleshy white fruit from the top notch terroir. The back end it balanced by succulent acidity and great chalky presence, making this a very fine aperitif. Cinnamon and I enjoyed this on its own before dinner, and loved the completeness, richness and refreshing character of the wine. If you have never had the Mumm de Cramant, it is worth checking out!

This wonderfully aromatic and open Barbaresco is drinking great right now, with plenty of manly power for the richest Osso Bucco. The folks at Ugo Lequio have given us a wine with the classic tar and roses of the best wines of Piedmont and the length of the best wines anywhere. Don't miss the great Gallina- it will be nice to have a few extra for the years to come!

I first tasted the 1998 Dom Perignon P2 Brut Champagne with Pacific King Salmon, Spring Squash and Porcini Mushrooms at Madera restaurant. This was in a completely different league than the initial release of 1998; gone was the big hit of yeast and instead the wine showed elegance that I rarely associate with this vintage. It had a gorgeous store of pin point streamers and a generous nose of black cherry Pinot. The finish went on and on.

No Champagne is more famous within France than Ruinart, but it is only now that connoisseurs in the USA are starting to discover these great wines from Champagne. It isn't from lack of history- they compete with Gosset for the honor of being the oldest house in all of Champagne! This rich, well balanced rose will delight fans of great pink Champagne with a great contrast between pure Pinot fruit and pure Champagne chalk.

Of all the grand marques, no one offers a cleaner, purer example of Champagne fruit and refreshment than Billecart-Salmon. The Billecart family pick earlier than most, and run the coldest, longest fermentations in all of Champagne to deliver their inimitable, graceful house style. If you are looking for the ultimate in balance aperitif Champagne, you have found it!

Drinking this Clos De Beze with a medium rare lamb chop was such a great pleasure that it made me laugh... When a vineyard of this class and a winemaker of this skill deliver there is nothing quite like it. This has the power, the depth, the complexity--everything a person could want on the checklist of great red Burgundy attributes. Even better than that, it is put together without a hint of strain... It is effortless.

This polished, classy Beaumonts has all of the characteristics that turns men into fools over Burgundy. It manages polish, elegance and depth while showing a feral, leathery side at the same time. This wine has subtle nuances that entrance me, and seamless texture to please me- if you are looking for a treat of a Vosne, look no further!

If you are looking for white Burgundy with real breed, complexity and intrigue, you have found it. The 2011 Morgeot from Domaine Blain Gagnard is drinking spectacularly now, and promises even more for the future. I find both cream and earth in this classy bottle of Chardonnay, and a finish that won't stop.

I just tasted this fabulous Champagne with Olivier Krug when he stopped by K&L with some bottles. It is composed of 46% Pinot Noir, 29% Chardonnay and 25% Meunier and entirely barrel fermented. This wine is starting to flesh out with time, and has a spectacular full body, great texture, open knit toasty aromas and flavors and impressive power. This is a perfect partner to charcuterie, and given the history of the house, should age for decades.

The current batch of the Sous Bois from Billecart Salmon is based on the spectacular 2008 vintage, and the combination of richness from the all barrel vinification and the extraordinary acidity of the vintage makes for one of the most impressive bottles in their line. If you haven't tried this newest addition to the great line from Billecart, don't miss out, the 2008 based wine is very special!

These fabulous magnums came direct from the property, and are a rare opportunity to drink the very top end of Champagne from a great vintage at its peak. We were only able to get six of these beauties!

The Comtes De Champagne is a benchmark blanc de blancs for a reason. Taittinger uses the best Grand Cru Chardonnay that they can get to make a small amount of the most decadent and age-worthy Champagne available. The 2005 is open knit and incredibly delicious now with plenty of toasty brioche and energetic citrus. It should also last quite a long time!

It is rare to find a big red wine that is balanced, rarer still to find a powerful wine that has nuance, and near impossible to find one with all these features at a reasonable price. Our South African buyer Ryan has done it with this Sequillo, and I am very impressed... If you like Syrah this has it all- meaty brawn, seamless texture and enough lift and length to make you want glass after glass!

These Sequillo wines are on the top of my must-try value list. The Eben Sadie White Blend is loaded with the kind of complexity and exoticism that makes sommelier's swoon with a rich texture that even lovers of California Chardonnay will not be able to resist. This wine is snapped together with excellent acidity, and really seems to have it all. Don't miss this, it will fool you for a bottle twice the price!

I had this magic Champagne with a mushroom tart that Cinnamon made. The combination of morel and brown mushrooms worked perfectly with this wine, which has always made an excellent partner to savory food… You can check out past pairings of the 2002 and 2003 on the blog. I find the magic in this rose aromatically; Christmas spices, dark cherry fruit, fresh baked pie crust and a hint of chalk. This open aroma gives way to flavors that are so elegant, laid back and subtle that it would be impossible to tire of drinking it. All the virtues of the classic 2004 vintage are here; finesse and ease as well as bright acidity and near infinite minerality on the finish.

This is composed of half each Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and fermented in stainless steel at the Chateau. It is very clean, but not at all austere; in fact it is quite broad and rich ... A real signature Aube characteristic! It has great texture and body focused with very nice Burgundian style minerality. This will make a great aperitif, but also go well with charcuterie or even a cheese course. The Chateau de Bligny is a big property, one of the largest growers in all of Champagne at 75 acres. They also have one of the few Clos Champenois, a walled vineyard of just 2 acres which they bottle separately.

Champagne always tastes better from magnum--and this Ice is very rare in this format! Moët & Chandon introduces Moët Ice Imperial, the world's first ever Champagne created to be enjoyed over ice. This is a blend developed from the house's signature crus, to intensify the taste experience of icy freshness and powerful aromas of tropical fruits. Made to be enjoyed in the daytime, Moet Ice Imperial offers a unique experience for spontaneous moments of celebrations with friends on a sunny day.

This big, rustic wine is a great value! If you like them dark, big and earthy, the Gordo will not disappoint. The best thing about this wine is the unexpected herbal complexity- a very uncommon trait in a sub $20 wine. This will be great with BBQ ribs or marinated tri-tip on the grill!

This intense, dark, powerful Rioja is top quality stuff that is perfect for fans of really big wines now and a great cellar candidate for later. The Prado Enea is very young and intense in the context of other Gran Reservas with bold black fruit flavors and flashy oak. The substance is there too- I have had bottles going back into the early 80's that show these wines are capable of improving for decades!

The 2008 Louis Roederer Brut Champagne, their “classic” vintage, comes from 23 acres of estate vineyard. It is composed of 70% Pinot Noir from the Grand Cru of Verzenay and 30% Chardonnay from the Grand Cru of Avize. This Champagne has nutty flavors aromas and flavors that remind me of the chestnuts that they sell on the street in Alba in the truffle season braced by chalky acidity that gives the wine the kind of length that I can feel all the way in the back of my head. This wine is going to be a legend--it tastes fantastic now, and should cellar for as long as you can keep your hands off of it. This is spectacular vintage Champagne, and will provide a generation of enjoyment. No doubt you will be able to laugh about what a good deal it was years from now… If you don’t drink it all this year!

The 2012 Domaine Jessiaume Volnay 1er Cru "Brouillards" was the first wine that I have ever had from this cru in the middle of the commune. Jessiaume owns just over half an acre in this vineyard situated between the premier crus of Mitans and Combes Dessus. It is vilified in 30% new oak for one year and then five months of settling in stainless steel before bottling. This wine had the magic of the commune, with wild berry fruit, some cracked pepper and new leather elements on the nose. The wild fruit gives way to sophisticated, light bodied purity in the mouth, and the finish is near Champagne like in its laser like focus and outstanding purity.